When you ever get to feel down and discouraged remember
some of the things God says to you and about you in His Word:
As a Christian, if you have asked Christ in to your life
as Lord and Savior, God says He has forgiven you (Col 1:14). He has given you a
new spiritual heart in fellowship with Him (Jn 3:3, 5-6; Ez 36:26). You are a
new creation in Christ Jesus, a species of being that never existed before (2
Cor 5:17)! You are a child of God (Jn 1:12-13), seated in heavenly places with
Christ (Eph 2:6); a joint heir with Jesus (Ro 8:17).
This all means you are in Christ and all He is and has is
yours, now and forever! Jesus dwells in you as the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:16-18)
and God's word says that no evil force in this world is greater than the Holy
Spirit that dwells in you (1 Jn 4:4). Jesus defeated satan and took all power
and authority back from him (Col 2:15); you are victorious in Christ (1 Cor
15:57).
God loves you with a never failing love, no matter what
you have done or who you are (Ro 8:38-39); He will never leave you or forsake
you (Heb 13:5)! God says you are His workmanship, His work of art (Eph 2:10),
designed for good works that He has for you (Eph 2:10).
Wow, that should rev your motor! Send this to a friend.
“That I may
know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:10-11; NKJV)
These verses show Paul’s heart, his life motivation.
Paul’s sole motivation was to know Christ; not to know about Him but to know
Him! Paul desired to be like Christ in dying to self and sin and living to
eternal life. He counted it gain to suffer for Christ as this reflected his
complete identification with Jesus.
In an earlier verse in Philippians Chapter 3 (V8),
Paul looked back at his earlier life without Jesus and counted it as loss,
rubbish, compared to knowing Christ in an intimate, dynamic and life changing
relationship. The word rubbish can be translated dung, showing how emphatic
Paul was in making his point! Paul went on to say that he didn’t look back but
pressed on to follow the call of Jesus (v12-13) to come closer and higher in
relationship with Him (Jesus) and to experience the power of Christ’s
resurrection (v10).
Paul had a heavenly or eternal perspective while he
ministered powerfully and effectively on this earth in the anointing of God!
Wow, that’s what I want! Let’s press in but remember not to get condemned as
Paul said, when he wrote this epistle, that he had not arrived (v13)!
“Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the
fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of
the Lord” (Ps 124:7-8a; NKJV). “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin
which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb
12:1-2).
As children of God we have been removed from the power
of satan and conveyed into the kingdom of God (Col 1:13). We have escaped from
the fowler’s snare or satans snares but satan still tries to ensnare us with
sin (1 Pet 5:8). Matthew tells us that if we seek first God’s kingdom, all the
blessings of God will be ours (Matt 6:33).
How do we lay aside those sins that
hold us back, how do we pant and thirst after God (Ps 42:1-2), seeking His
kingdom? Well, John’s gospel tells us that God’s word (Jesus) is truth and the
truth will make us free (John 8:32). Receiving the freedom and blessings we
have in Christ is no more complicated than spending time in His word and
believing the truth can work in our lives and bring freedom and blessings! "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection" (Phil 3:10).
So, rest in the
Lord, in His word and wait patiently for Him today (Ps 37:7), cast your cares
on Him (1 Pet 5:7) and allow Him to work in your life.
Psalm 103:2-3 talks about God’s benefits and reminds us
that He heals all of our diseases. God had a healing covenant with His people
in the Old Testament as long as they obeyed the law (Ex 15:26), but praise God
in the New Testament we are told that we are healed by the stripes of Jesus
(1 Pet 2:24).
Jesus body was flogged, broken, striped with wounds so
we could be whole. In Acts 10:38 it talks about Jesus: “how God anointed Jesus
of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and
healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him”. He is still
our healer today; we are told in Hebrews that He never changes (Heb 13:8).
So He can heal but will He heal me you may ask? Well
God is no respecter of person (Mark 12:14) and He reassured the doubting leper:
“then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing (to heal
you); be cleansed. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Matt 8:3). Alleluia!
Healing is yours, believe God for it today. Agree with God and receive by
faith.
As we look
around us today we often see people in fear and confusion as they watch TV and
listen to the fear mongers in the media. But fear and confusion should have no
place in the life of the Christian. “God has not given us a spirit of fear but
of power and of love and of a sound mind”(2 Tim 1:7; NKJV).
God says that
perfect love drives fear from our lives (1 John 4:18). Fear is the opposite of
faith; faith believes God, fear believes the reports of the devil. If our lives
are driven by selfishness and evil motives then confusion easily results (James
3:16) but “God is not the author of confusion but of peace”(1 Cor 14:33).
How do
we walk in peace? In Isaiah chapter 26 and verse 3 it is written: “You will
keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in
You”. Let's commit to walk in love, focus on God's word and believe it, not the
noise in the world around us. Let's cut through the confusion in our world and
be beacons of God's life, peace and truth. “And you shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free”(John 8:32)!
True life and freedom are not to be found
in rushing after everything the World says is important. God's greatest desire
is to bless us, but His word says: “seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things (God's provisions and blessings) shall be
added unto you”(Matt 6:33). We need to put God first and do things God's way! Wow, I don”t know about you, but I needed to hear that! If these words have
helped you, please share them with a friend.